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Thought is not unipolar-that is, it doesn't flow fully formed from a single point in the body or an isolated bundle of nerve cells in the cranium. Thought is not the lonely function of one organ, but works more along the lines of a relationship-a marriage, if you will.

Look within yourself, and feel: there is an active, working relationship among the parts of the self that we abnormally imagine as disjointed or even opposing organs and functions. The heart sits at the top of the thoracic cavity, sounding the rhythm of Nature, sending nourishment throughout the body, and sharing information along electrochemical pathways with the brain and the rest of the central nervous system.

The heart is the primary feeling organ of the self: like a woman breathing into her lover's ear, it feeds inspiration to the brain, which then transforms that inspiration into the expression of insight and invention. When you let this happen, it is bliss beyond comparisonsomething like sex on warm, moonlit sand, moistened by an evening ebb tide.

So visualize, if you will, a continuous current of energy that begins in the heart, rises and flows upward, emanating like light from a windblown candle along the upper spinal column and into the brainstem. From there it glows onward, diffusing across the seemingly infinite neural pathways of the midbrain and forebrain, awakening and inspiring everything in its luminous path. It curls, like jasmine smoke, over the forebrain, along the face downward, through the mouth and the throat, back toward the origin and destination of this infinite loop of perception and expression, the heart.

Now consider the shape made by this pathway: it is the symbol for infinity. That is who you are; it is the simple essence, the core of your uniqueness. Discover it.

Learn more about this author, Brian Donohue.
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